


Crucible

by graceandfire



Series: Brightness Burns [10]
Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: M/M, Mirror Universe, Origin Story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-20
Updated: 2013-07-20
Packaged: 2017-12-20 20:43:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,204
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/891643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/graceandfire/pseuds/graceandfire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The composition of a man (or, MirrorKirk's origin story)</p><p>"Listen carefully… I don’t know what kind of horror that other Kirk was raised in to turn out the way he did but you could never become him.”  Leonard McCoy, ‘The Other Side’</p>
            </blockquote>





	Crucible

The Galkan Governmental alliance has crumbled under the weight of civil war.  Again.  So Jim has spent the past week on this backwater planet making sure they get their fucking act together.   
  
The Galkans are hot heads, but not _complete_ idiots, so sense prevails once Jim makes clear that the alternative to negotiating a new peace treaty is the mass executions of the ruling class.  It’s at the signing of the new peace treaty—overseen by the bodies of the two faction leaders still swinging lazily from their nooses—that some of the younger ruling class Galkans decide that, yes, in fact they _are_ complete idiots, and suddenly there are energy guns blazing and swords flashing and the high courtyard is filled with the screams of the wounded and moans of the dying.  Jim finds himself annoyed at the waste of it—they’re going to have to execute a hell of a lot more Galkans now as an example—even as he revels in the physical fun of hand to hand combat.   
  
His sword is in his left hand, dripping gore, his gun is in his right and, as he dispatches another Galkan to whatever god they pray to—his mind calls the information up, Evelgon, God of Mightiness, yeah, right—he takes automatic stock of the chaos.  Security is effectively deployed; Spock is logically killing Galkans left and right; Sulu is cutting through the oversized aliens like a scythe through wheat, man’s a fucking artist with those swords; McCoy is…Jim’s eyes narrow, what the _fuck_ does McCoy think he’s doing?  He watches in rising fury as the doctor crouches over an injured crewmember, an energy blast barely missing him.  McCoy is supposed to be fucking _hiding_ is what he’s _supposed_ to be doing, not charging around trying to save people.  He can do that _after_ , when the threat is secured and there are people to watch over his ‘not trained in warfare and not a ruthless murdering bastard’ ass.  McCoy apparently needs a little reminder about just who that ass belongs to.  Jim starts forward, pausing long enough to signal to Spock.   
  
"It’s starting to wrap up.  Arrest fucking _everybody_.  We’ll scare the shit out of them and figure out who to execute later.”  He continues on towards McCoy, eyes continually scanning, because the very end of battle is often the most dangerous.  It’s when people let their guard down and…he sees the hulking Galkan take aim, realizes the target and Jim’s sprinting before he finishes processing, phaser coming up but it’s not going to be enough because he…he sees McCoy’s eyes widen, knowledge flashing across his face…Jim fires blindly and hits the Galkan square but it takes at least three blasts for a sure kill against their rhino hides and the Galkan just shrugs it off and re-aims and Jim is jumping and it’s like a thousand darts of fire slamming into him, burrowing into his body and he’s flying back through the air…and the world goes dark.  
  
He comes back to consciousness, arching with the agony that sends flames over him, through him, consuming flesh and nerve and bone.  He fights his way past the pain, vaguely aware there are people surrounding him.  His eyes flicker, trying to focus, fuck, he can’t keep them open…  
  
“Kirk!  Kirk don’t you fucking do this.  You’re too much of a bastard to die…Chapel get that plasma…he’s coding… _Goddammnit!_ ”  
  
He knows that voice.  McCoy, sounding pissed off, as usual.  The fire crawling along his nerves is starting to fade away, along with the brief return to consciousness, but he tries to hold on and listen to the furious raging.  He loves listening to McCoy growl, the acid acerbic edge, the drawl, the resentful rebelliousness that always makes fucking with him so much fun and…

 _Aww, shit he’s dying_.  Jim realizes it in a burst of unhappy clarity.  He can’t _die_ , Jim open his mouth to tell McCoy this—except his mouth isn’t working and where the hell is he?—he looks around and then down, spotting the familiar sight of McCoy bent over a body on a biobed.   
  
He tries to get closer and he blinks and stiffens at the sight of his own body sprawled out and his face, slack and empty…shit, that’s a _lot_ of blood.  McCoy is swearing furiously, steadily, creatively, as he berates and threatens the empty shell of James Tiberius Kirk.  Yeah, that’s his McCoy, perverse and ornery and brilliant and so stupidly concerned with saving lives.   
  
McCoy doesn’t get that lives are cheap and most people are just fuel meant to be sacrificed in the fire of other people’s ambitions.  It’s the few made of other, more valuable materials who are worth saving, keeping, or carefully cracking along the right fault line to eliminate their threat.  It always fascinates Jim that McCoy just never gets this, never seems able _not_ to care.  Fucking case in point, all McCoy has to do right now is sit back, a careful moment of hesitation and he can be free of Jim.   
  
Except, well… _fuck that_.  He doesn’t want to die, so McCoy had better…Jim looks around, uneasiness unfurling, where the fuck is he?  Spinning, he turns back but McCoy’s gone and darkness settles all around him.  It’s the blackness of space, of the void, and it’s so beautiful that it makes Jim’s heart ache.  It whispers to him like it always does, making him want to relax and just…  
  
 _“Kirk!”_ He hears McCoy’s voice again suddenly, faintly, and he tilts his head, listening.   
  
“McCoy!  McCoy, bring me back!” He hurls the order out, furious suddenly because _fuck_ if he goes calmly into whatever dark night is waiting for him, but the words fade away into the void, just tiny, insignificant sounds.  
  
 _“Kirk!  Goddamn it!  JIM!”_  
  
Jim?  He pauses, confused.  
  
No one calls him Jim anymore.  It’s Captain or Kirk or, rarely, James but not Jim.  Not since…he looks up and sees something forming out of the endless black.   
  
A figure…McCoy?…someone’s running, looking back at him, condescension on his face, not McCoy it’s…wait, what the fuck, he starts walking towards the retreating figure, then he starts running as the figure looks back and calls his name…  
  
“Jim!”  
  
 _Sam?_  
  
“I’m coming!” Jim yells furiously, his face set in concentration, legs pumping like pistons as he charges after Sam, who’s taking advantage of his longer fourteen year old legs, the asshole.  
  
“You’re gonna _lose,_ Jimmy!”  The taunt floats back to him on a laugh.  
  
Jim just narrows his eyes and pushes his eleven year old body harder because Sam might have the advantage, but that’s not going to stop him.  It never stops him.  He narrows the gap and his heart feels like it’ll pound right out of his chest with the demands being placed on it, but he just demands more as he and Sam sprint the last few meters to the main house at a dead heat.   
  
Sam gives him a startled, pissed off look as they burst through to the main foyer, Jim nosing ahead at the last.   
  
“Stubborn brat.”  
  
Jim coughs out a laugh of triumph even as he collapses to the floor, struggling to suck air into his burning lungs, as Sam rolls his eyes and stomps away.  
  
 _Sam always was a sore loser.  Wait…wait, I remember this day…_  
  
He’s standing at attention in mom’s study, turning over the information she’s relaying in his mind, trying to understand the odd thrum of tension in her usually cool voice.   
  
“You’ll spend a minimum of two years at Court.  This is a brilliant opportunity for you, James, and I expect you to take full advantage of it.  To make valuable contacts that will help you, help the family, for years to come.”  His mother is blonde and shining and beautiful, face carved out of pure lines, eyes implacable as they study him.  
  
 “Can Sam come with me?” Jim asks, trying not to grin, because this is serious but he and Sam, together at the Emperor’s Court, how fucking _cool_ would that be.  
  
“ _No._ ”  The answer is sharp and immediate and his mother’s tone curdles Jim’s excitement a little.  “James, the courts are dangerous, even for children…” she hesitates, a rare occurrence, “especially for children.  But one of you has to go.  It’s the Emperor’s orders.”   
  
 _Hostages you mean.  You should have just told me we were hostages.  You should have told me a lot of things._  
  
“I’ll make you proud of me,” he says hastily, face serious with the sense of occasion.  Pride is flushing through his body, and he straightens, standing tall.    
  
Dismissed, he runs to tell Sam because he tells Sam everything.  Man, he’s gonna be pissed though, Jim thinks, as he flies up the stairs and down the hall to his brother’s rooms.  
  
Sam is _very_ pissed and he rages at Jim like he can’t rage at their mother, because no one rages at Winona Kirk and comes away un-bloodied, not even—especially not—her sons.  
  
“I’m the oldest!  It doesn’t make _sense_ to send you!  I should be the one at Court, the one making connections.”  Sam sends a vicious glare at Jim.  
  
“I’ll make connections for both of us,” Jim assures him, trying to calm his brother down.  Sam’s right, as oldest he _should_ be going.  Jim doesn’t really understand it either—a part of him is still uneasily pondering why—but there’s pride too, that their mom chose _him_.  
  
Sam responds by growling and tackling him with a crushing thud and they spend the next few minutes putting their hand to hand lessons to ruthless good use.  Jim’s smaller but wiry and strong and he puts up a good fight.  Still, Sam takes him in the end because he’s stronger, bigger, and has almost four years’ more experience.  Jim takes the defeat good naturedly because at least Sam’s in a better mood after he gets his fury out of his system.  
  
The extra lessons on court protocol are boring but easy to memorize, ditto on the names of the various families, the history lessons and endless list of other information.  He knows most of this stuff from his old tutors and self study programs and breezes through the refreshers.  The private lessons in sword play, hand-to-hand and firearms usage are stepped up and the focus shifts to the proper etiquette for duels, how to thwart assassins, and the art of concealing weapons.  The idea of fighting a duel is exciting, the idea of stopping assassins somehow hilarious and learning how to conceal weapons is nothing but cool.   
  
The month stretches out forever even as it disappears in a blink and then he’s arriving at the shining sprawl of Court feeling hyper and nervous and wishing Sam was with him.  He’s one of the youngest kids there, most of them look around Sam’s age or a little younger.  He eyes a group of boys, all older than him, on the other side of the hall.  He wonders if he can make friends with them…  
  
 _Oh, you fucking_ moron _.  I can’t believe I was ever that young…ah, kid, don’t go over there…don’t…_  
  
He spends his first night at Court in the children’s infirmary.  He’s tussled with Sam before, fought under the careful tutelage of his instructors, done his share of ass kicking and had his ass kicked by other kids, but nothing like this.  Fucking seven to one odds—six to one actually, Finnegan, that cock sucking cockroach just stands back and laughs—and they kick him even when he’s down, curled into a ball in a dark corner of the hall to try and protect himself, while the other kids either watch or ignore the whole thing, indifferent.   
  
The graying infirmary nurse is brusque but not unkind and there’s a wealth of experience behind her no-nonsense eyes as she examines his stubborn, bloodied face and finally snorts.  “Something tells me we’re going to be seeing a lot of each other.”  
  
 _Heh, you are_ not _wrong Shep..._  
  
Her name is Nurse Shep and when she leaves Jim alone after patching him up with a dermal regenerator he lets himself shed the hot tears of pain and rage in the empty room.

He’s pissed off more than anything, because fucking _seven to one_.  
  
He’s back in the children’s dorm the next day, warier and just in time to be part of the full Court gathering called to witness an execution.  Standing in the execution chamber, still bruised and healing from Finnegan’s welcoming party, Jim watches the figure writhing and begging and screaming, barely recognizable as a man.  Some of the children throw up, some of them laugh, and some are silent statues.  Jim doesn’t throw up but he knows his face is pale and he can’t seem to stop the fine trembling that’s shaking its way through his thin, wiry body.  He hopes no one notices.  He turns to one of the other kids, Senthra, twelve years old with raven hair and ancient eyes—   
 _  
Senthra, aww fuck…look at you.  You’re beautiful._  
  
—she’s already proven to be a little less dangerous to approach than some of the others.   
  
“What did he do?”  He asks, working to keep his voice steady.  
  
She looks at him, pale face composed.   “He overreached himself.”  She takes in the trembling hands at a glance and offers him a soft smile, the first kind gesture he’s been given here.  “You’ll get used to it.”  
  
He spends his next few days feeling his way around the kids’ Court.  Turns out not everyone is as much of an asshole as Finnegan and his crew, but they _are_ all playing games with each other, jockeying for status, toadying up to people or stomping down their enemies, forming alliances that are made and broken sometimes hourly.  It baffles him at first but he keeps watching until he starts to detect the patterns of their games.   
  
On his fourth night Jim watches Finnegan and his crew beating up two other kids and, after the briefest of pauses, he charges in with a fierce smile and a shrieking war whoop.  He manages to bloody two of their noses and break one rib before they beat him to the ground.  The two kids he jumps in to help run away but Jim doesn’t really care.  They aren’t the point.  Finnegan, tall and cocky, looks down at him and grins as two of his goons, Ezra and Felix, hold Jim pinned.  “You want to take their place fuckface, not a problem.”   
  
 _Yeah, you fucking wait, Finnegan...you just wait..._  
  
It’s his second trip to the infirmary.  Nurse Shep rolls her eyes when she sees him.  
  
The guardians of the kids’ Court don’t much interfere in their games and battles but there’s a line to how much damage can be inflicted, or how public the fighting can be, before adult wrath comes crashing down.  It’s an unspoken agreement that _no one_ wants the adults’ attention drawn to them due to their tendency to throw anyone even peripherally involved into the Booths.  The first time Jim gets Booth punishment after a brawl, nothing can prepare him for the fire that pulses along his nerve endings making him scream and throw up and cry.  He doesn’t beg though, chewing his lips down to raw meat to keep the pleas from escaping, as he watches the others beg through the sound dampened translucent Booth walls to the attendants who look at them with bored smirks.   
  
His mother has sent him here for a purpose and Jim throws himself into Court, using his natural charisma, brains and brawn to win friends and allies.  He learns every spoken and unspoken rule the Court has inside and out and then cheerfully breaks half of them.  He tops every class and embraces fighting with a ferocity that brings approving smiles from his instructors and growing apprehension from his classmates.  His age stops mattering as he ruthlessly carves out his position through dueling, brawling, charm, psychological warfare and anything else that works.  His status keeps rising and Senthra kisses him on the cheek after dinner one night, smiling wryly.  “Don’t forget me when you’re in charge.”  He hates himself for blushing.  
  
As satisfying as it is to get lost in the painful crunch of knuckle brawling, the bright satisfaction of breaking bones and drawing blood, Jim finds his true strength lies in the fact that he can think circles around just about everybody.  It’s a surprise at first to realize how slow everyone else is at coming up with strategies, or how obvious they tend to be, how he can see patterns and pull strings that others don’t even know exist.    
  
Jim whittles away Finnegan’s base of support.  Ezra breaks after one too many punishment sessions when Jim deliberately starts getting them all thrown in the Booth as often as possible.  That’s about the same time Finnegan—far too late—offers a truce which Jim responds to by blackmailing Cole.  Edgar runs scared, and it ends when Vincent switches sides one day, bringing Felix and Gabriella along.  In the end Finnegan’s left standing alone without backing and Jim sends him to the infirmary every single day with broken bones and shallow knife wounds.  He’s already getting bored when Finnegan finally breaks and crawls and begs in public.  After that Jim leaves him to the non-existent mercy the Court gives to losers.  
  
His mom shows up from time to time, swimming in and out of the regular adult Court on her own agenda.  Sometimes Jim isn’t even aware she’s been there until she’s gone.  It never occurs to him to ask for her help.   
  
When he gets leave after his first year, he walks into his childhood home and it’s all wrong.  Feelings like ‘safe’ and ‘rest’ try to settle over him but he shakes them off savagely.  There’s no such fucking thing as _safe_.  He keeps watching for threats, but there’s only Sam, who greets him with a friendly punch and “hey brat”, his grin faltering in the face of Jim’s Court perfected lazy smirk that promises friendship and danger in equal measure.   
  
It’s at dinner that first night that Jim looks at Sam sitting across from him, a teenager, a _kid,_ and tries to imagine his brother at Court, in that poisonous pool of vipers and cutthroats.  He feels something ugly twist in his gut when he realizes that Sam would have failed there.  Oh, he probably wouldn’t have flamed out like some of the kids, wouldn’t have killed himself or been one of the losers ending up as helpless entertainment for the winners.  But he wouldn’t have risen to the top either.  He would have found himself a quiet corner and hid in safety.  He would have been a _follower_.  
  
Jim thinks about watching execution after execution and how he and Vincent have started taking bets on how long the condemned will last.  Thinks about the Booth and how it feels like your skin is being peeled away as acid pours over exposed flesh.  Thinks about guarding against attacks, physical and political, and sleeping with a knife and phaser under your pillow, and of never, _ever_ being safe.  He watches Sam, so normal, so sane, such a _kid_.  
  
 _So innocent…_  
  
So _weak_ and an urge to strip away that weakness swims through Jim, so powerful it makes him dizzy.  He wants to sink the steak knife he’s holding into soft flesh and _make_ Sam feel a little of what Jim’s felt, one cut at a time.  Jim stares at Sam, mesmerized, until the other boy scowls and snaps a nervous “what?!” and Jim sets the knife down carefully, because a part of him knows if he gives in to the ugly rage that’s pounding through his head, he won’t stop until there’s nothing left of Sam but meat and blood and bones.   
  
It was supposed to be Sam at Court, not him.   
  
He excuses himself from the table, from his mother’s sharp eyes and Sam’s sulky ones, and runs and runs out in the cold until he falls, shivering and crying for the first time in almost a year, vomiting for what feels like hours.  He finally crawls away and collapses, looking up at the endless canopy of trees and the faint lights of the stars peeking through until it all fades away and he’s surrounded by a cold black void of nothingness and it feels so…comforting.  He could stay here forever, he thinks, disappear into it and just drift away.  He stays in that comforting nothingness for a long time before he picks himself up and walks steadily back to the house.  
  
His mother is waiting and he pauses in front of her, shivering and soaked.  She looks at him, face unreadable.   
  
“I knew if you survived you’d be magnificent.”   
  
He’s not sure if it’s an apology or a compliment or both, but it’s the only thing she says before she turns and walks away.

 

He returns to court early.  In another six months he’s the undisputed leader of his peers.  It gets boring but he’s got bigger plans now and he starts laying them out with these other children who are not children and never will be again.   
  
He’s thirteen when he discovers how much he _really_ loves sex and how much of it other people are willing to offer when you have something they want.  His first and favorite is Senthra, the raven haired girl with the ancient eyes and the soft smile.  They hook up when he’s not cheerfully fucking his way through his other classmates—those pretty, or interesting or powerful enough to catch his eye.   
  
He’s almost fifteen when Senthra comes to his rooms, white faced and shaking.  He’s never seen her so wrecked.  “I’m pregnant,” she whispers, and she’s scared, so scared.  Well, fuck, the odds are pretty damn low it’s his.  How the hell did she even manage to _get_ pregnant with the birth control injected once a year?  Sabotage from one of her enemies or a freak rejection by her body?  
  
“James, my parents will kill me,” she whispers, red eyed and strangely broken.   
  
Yeah, okay, fuck, he runs his hands through his hair, thinking.  “Right, I’ll set you up with a doc I know.  He’s discreet.”   
  
He watches her hand stray to her stomach, almost unconsciously.  “No!  James, Jim, I…I want to keep it.”  She looks at him hopefully and he sees the lie forming on her face before it’s spoken.  “It’s yours.  If…if you claim it, they’ll let me keep it.  I know they will.”  
  
He laughs at her, a reaction to the unexpected bite of betrayal more than anything because there's no way she knows.   
  
Her face crumples and then smoothes, features pale and composed like the first time he ever saw her, and she turns to leave without saying another word.  He watches her walking away…she’s never lied to him before…  
  
 _Wait no, call her back, call her_ back, _don’t let her…_  
  
What if…he lets her walk away.  
  
They find her body two nights later, official cause of death, accidental drowning.  He bribes the morgue staff for a genetic sample and testing proves conclusively that no part of the baby is attributable to his DNA.   
  
It should make him feel better.  He doesn’t understand why it doesn’t.  But the rage growing in him, black and ugly, is better than the pain.  The day Senthra’s remains are shipped home, he puts seven of the Court in the infirmary, all adults and four of them are Court security.  The average Booth punishment is half an hour.  He’s sentenced to twenty four.  He doesn’t make a sound as he writhes and twitches and spasms, as his body voids itself, as his nerve endings are flayed and boiled and frozen at the same time.  He’s laughing when they drag him out and the attendants cringe away from the sound.  
  
By the time he’s released, his rampage through court and ‘already reaching legendary status’ performance in the Booth is attracting all sorts of attention, including the interest of the Galdren family.  Luca Galdren is a burly, tough as nails old man with a terrifying reputation, soulless eyes and decades of power cloaking him like a dark sun.  Galdren’s patronage will further Jim’s goals and since it feels like he belongs in a place made of shadows, he accepts the offer.  After years in the children’s Court and Senthra he thinks there’s nothing left to lose.   
  
 _Wrong, wrong…so_ fucking _wrong…you always have more to lose._  
  
He finds out how wrong he is when he plunges into the icy malice of Luca’s inner circle and feels what’s left of his soul get stripped and shredded into tatters.  It doesn’t matter though because he enters the Academy at the age of sixteen with the full blessing and support of the Galdrens, the Conti’s and the Jiang’s, the three most powerful families in the Empire.  He has contacts and blackmail material and favors and fear.  He blazes through the Academy like a comet and vaults his way up the ranks of service and he’s twenty-three years old and the youngest Captain _ever_ appointed in the Terran Fleet.  And he doesn’t take just _any_ fucking bucket of bolts for his ship.  
  
He takes command of the Enterprise.  
  
 _Fucking magnificent…and she’s_ mine _…_  
  
He’s never felt such a sense of possessiveness, of claim as he takes in her shining, clean lines and stately beauty.  And then he takes a tour of her Sickbay and meets a snarling Doctor who doesn’t know how _not_ to rebel…doesn’t know how not to fight, to give up…give up…  
  
 _“…you’re not allowed to give up!  Jim!  You come back_ now _!”_  
  
Pain crashes back over Jim like a tidal wave, calling him back to his wrecked body and he writhes and seizes on the hard surface of the table, coughing out blood and matter and…  
  
“ _Jim!_  That’s it…you stay with me now.  You fucking _stay_ _with me_!  Chapel, another 50 cc’s.  Get that stabilizer over here.  Jim you’re going to be okay.  You took a hell of a blast to your entire goddamn front, it damaged your lungs, your kidneys, your spleen, fuck what _didn’t_ it damage, but I’ve repaired most of the soft tissue, the bones are knitting, and you’ve stopped bleeding out.  You’re going to be okay.  Can you understand me?”  
  
 _No one calls me Jim anymore.  Not since Sam and I were kids.  
_  
“ _Jim_ ,” is all he manages to choke out.  
  
“Yeah, that’s your name, you’re gonna be okay.  Rest now.”   The voice is calm and reassuring and relieved.  
  
The world goes blank.  
  
When Jim wakes up again, he’s in unbearable agony and it feels good.  He’s fucking alive so _fuck you,_ Universe.  His head is clearer and he’s going to have to go back down to that mud pit of a planet and kill himself a whole lot of aliens but he’ll deal with that later.  He looks over to the side and is not surprised to see a clearly exhausted Leonard McCoy muttering over charts.  
  
“McCoy.”  It’s barely a rasp but he watches the other man’s head swing up, eyes immediately narrowing in professional assessment.  The prognosis must not suck because McCoy allows himself a brief satisfied smile before heading over and drawling in his most obnoxious voice, “Well, well, look who’s back among the living.”  
  
Uh huh.  He lets his glare do his talking for him.  “Status?”  
  
“Well, let’s see, you damaged pretty much every vital organ your body has, but I’m a goddamn genius so you’re gonna make a full recovery,” comes the acerbic drawl.  
  
“How long?”  
  
“How long were you out or how long for a recovery?”  Before Jim can answer, McCoy shrugs and answers both questions, laying a callused hand against Jim’s forehead, running it gently along Jim’s neck to feel the stubborn pulse.  “You were in surgery for a good ten hours before I had you stabilized.  You were dead for part of that time by the way,” he says pointedly.   
  
At Jim’s lack of reaction, he rolls his eyes.  “You’ll be pretty much useless for about three more days.  You can start on solid foods and walking after that.  I’d normally expect to see you released—not that it means you’ll be at full strength—in about two weeks but since this is you, I’m guessing you’ll be bitching to get out of here in about a week.”  
  
“Planet?”  
  
He watches McCoy’s jaw tighten.  “Commander Spock and his team subdued the rebels but they’re holding off on carrying out punishments until they hear your orders.”  
  
Jim runs through the mental checklist that’s been automatically compiling itself. “Weapon?”  
  
McCoy blinks down at him.  “What?”  
  
“I need a weapon,” he repeats impatiently.  Even with the steps he’s taken it’s too good an opportunity for an enterprising officer to try to jump up the ranks.  
  
McCoy open his mouth, looking like he’s about to argue, and then shuts it with a sigh of annoyance.  Jim listens to irritated stomps, the bang of a drawer, more stomping and then feels the comforting weight of a phaser being pressed against his side.   
  
“You realize that you’re weak as a day old kitten and that if you try to fire it you’ll probably hit either you or—knowing my luck—me, by accident?”  
  
Jim points the phaser at McCoy and gets an eye roll in response.  “Yeah, whatever, you’re not as scary when you can’t even get out of bed you know… _goddammit,_ Kirk!  That was not a fucking dare!”  Jim’s automatic reflex of trying to get up is rewarded by fresh waves of agony and he chuckles and gasps around it at McCoy’s suddenly worried tones.  
  
“You could have just let me die, y’know,” Jim points out, teeth gritting, still riding the crest of pain.  
  
“Yeah, well, don’t fucking tempt me,” is the muttered response as McCoy stares down at him.  He looks pissed.  “You jumped in front of that blast, y’know.  That Galkan was aiming at me.”  
  
Jim blinks as the memory rises up.  Huh, oh yeah.  Well, that was fucking stupid of him.   
  
He shrugs.  
  
“Will you fucking _stop moving?_ ”  
  
He deliberately shrugs again, yeah, more pain and then smirks up at McCoy.  “I didn’t want to have to train a new toy when I’ve already wasted so much time on you.”  The smile drops away from his face.  “Which reminds me, we’re going to have a fucking talk about your tendency to obey a fucking direct order to stay out of the _fucking_ line of fire.”  
  
McCoy just glares down at him.  “I was doing _my fucking job._   Now shut up and go to sleep. You can threaten me later.”  
  
McCoy stomps away again and comes back, holding a hypospray.  “I know you’ve got standing orders about drugs but your body is wrecked.  You’ve been burning through medication as fast as I can give it to you so I’m going to start a timed dosage of…”  
  
Jim shakes his head.  “No…can’t be drugged and out of it.”  
  
McCoy is glaring at him.  “Kirk, just let me give you…”  
  
“I _will_ shoot you.”  
  
McCoy is gritting his teeth.  “ _Fine_ , enjoy your pain you masochistic…” the rest of his furious tirade is lost as Kirk lets himself drift off, holding the phaser in his left hand, hidden against his side from casual observers.   
  
He only half hears, and can’t pull himself up enough from his stupor to answer—if McCoy gave him drugs after all he’s going to…—something about Jim’s personal security detail at the door and how he’ll be back to check on him after he catches up on some well earned sleep and something about a goddamn vacation…  
  


Jim forces himself awake, fighting up against the insistent drag of unconsciousness.  Something had...something doesn't feel...he hears…McCoy?  No, it doesn’t feel right, something doesn’t feel right.  He forces his eyes open a crack, straining to listen.   Someone’s moving in Sickbay.  Someone’s…he recognizes the figure of one of McCoy’s nurses, Dickinson, that’s her name.    
  
“Captain?”  It’s the softest of whispers, an assurance of sleep rather than an attempt to awaken as he hears her approach by the subdued rustle of her uniform.   Closer, she’s almost there…instincts tell him she’s not here as a healer.  If he’s wrong he’s going to have McCoy bitching at him about killing a perfectly good nurse but he’s not wrong.  He tightens his grip on the phaser and prepares to fire.  
  
“What the hell do you think you’re doing, Angela?”  It’s McCoy’s voice and Jim pauses, aborting his preemptive shot.  
  
Slitted eyes reveal the form of Nurse—who the fuck gives a damn that her first name is Angela except maybe McCoy—Dickinson who’s turned to face McCoy, her back to Jim now.  Well that’ll make shooting her easier.  
  
“Doctor McCoy!  I…you’re supposed to be resting.  I…I mean you must be exhausted after…I’m just adjusting the captain’s medication,” her tone is flustered, guilty.  You _suck_ at espionage Nurse ‘soon to be dead’ Dickinson, Jim thinks grimly.  
  
“I _am_ goddamn exhausted, which is why I’m pissed as hell that I can’t sleep.  Now I need you to show me what you were about to inject into the captain because we both know his drugs don’t need adjusting.”  
  
There’s a long pause and McCoy’s stern voice goes oddly gentle.  “Angela, give me the hypospray.”  
  
When Dickinson speaks again, her voice is harder and she’s still closer to Jim than to McCoy.  “Doctor McCoy…Leonard, please, listen to me.  You don’t even have to do anything.  You just need to walk away and pretend you were never here.”  
  
“Aw, goddammit, Angela, are you insane?  I don’t know what you’ve been promised or who talked you into this but going against Kirk is a mistake.  Just give me the hypospray.  Angela…”  
  
“I know you’re his pet, Leonard,” there’s a note of resentment in her voice now.  “But the rest of us have no guarantees.  Chapel is Head Nurse and Forrest is in line after her.  If I want to advance I have to do _something_.”  
  
“And killing James Kirk, captain of the Enterprise, is the answer to getting a pay grade increase?”  McCoy’s voice is incredulous.  “Goddamn it woman, you really _are_ insane.  That’s like trying to use a photon torpedo to swat a gnat and trust me, Kirk’s _not_ the gnat.  Whoever promised you the head nurse position is using you.”  
  
“It doesn’t matter.  This was supposed to look like a natural reaction against the drugs.  Kirk’s got too many friends in high places.  My backers want him dead without casting suspicion.”  Her voice is increasingly desperate.  “Leonard, I know you hate him too.  Just let me do this.  You’ll thank me for it.”  
  
“Angela, _no!_ ”  
  
Kirk has the gun up, snarling silently at the pain it causes but holds his fire as he watches the dark shape of McCoy barrel into Dickinson, his deeper curses overriding her higher pitched shrieking until suddenly she slumps and McCoy’s shaking her and muttering to himself before swinging her up in his arms and depositing her still form on a biobed.  He moves around the lab and then Jim can hear the soft hiss of a hypospray in the hushed silence.   
  
The hum of a tricorder follows.  McCoy mutters “Got it in time.  Fuck, Angela, what a stupid thing to do.”  
  
“Decent plan, actually,” Kirk rasps and McCoy startles and swings around to face him.  
  
“How long have you been awake?”  
  
“It was a decent plan.” He repeats, ignoring McCoy’s question.  “Make it look like an accident and if it fails you’ve got a patsy.  I’ve got too many connections and holds over people.  I die in a coup, a whole lot of nasty things happen to a whole lot of nasty people.”  Which is the reason for the damn phaser.  
  
He looks at the still form on the biobed.  “Keep her alive for questioning.”  
  
He watches McCoy’s face tighten in distaste and he half expects an argument but the other man nods, unhappy.  “Yeah, I know.  You need to find out who she’s working for.”  
  
“Oh, I’m pretty sure I know, but it’s always good to have confirmation.”   He lets the phaser fall back to his side.   
  
“You seem pretty blasé about an attempt on your life.”  McCoy’s gruff voice is vaguely accusatory.  
  
“It comes with the job.  Now call my security team.  At least one of them should have followed the nurse inside.  I want to know where they are and we also need more men down here.  When her backers figure out she’s still alive they’ll come for her.”  
  
The faint stirring of air warns Jim an instant before he hears the icy voice.  
  
“They already have.”

Ah, fuck.  And here comes the puppet master.  
  
“Uhura.”  Jim looks at the silhouette of his communications officer in the darkened room and pulls up a lazy smile.  “Come to finish the job?”


End file.
